


End of an Age

by AuroraNova



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7061992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraNova/pseuds/AuroraNova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yes, it was probably selfish as hell to hope the Doctor lived forever. After all, Jack knew full well how much of a curse that could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of an Age

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that I've had for some years but never gotten around to writing. You might want tissues ready. Seriously, I needed them while writing it. 
> 
> Not mine, no profit, etc, etc.

A person can go through a lot of names in ten millennia, and he certainly had, but his favorite, the one he most identified with, was still Jack Harkness. It was a good name, and if he’d originally stolen it with less than honorable purposes, he liked to think he’d done well enough by it that the original bearer would forgive him.

His nighttime musings were interrupted by the telltale noise of the TARDIS materializing. He turned around and found the ship perched several meters away in the middle of the rooftop he’d chosen that night.

Oddly, the doors opened but the Doctor failed to appear. Jack had never seen the TARDIS doors open on their own like this. Concerned, he walked inside. “Doctor?”

“Jack.” It was the deep baritone of the Doctor’s thirteenth incarnation, but far too weak. A sick sense of foreboding washed over Jack as the doors shut behind him.

The Doctor was slumped against the center console, pale and breathing shallowly. He could barely lift up his head. “S’the end,” he whispered.

“No.” A universe without the Doctor was not a universe Jack wanted to live in. They rarely ran into each other, but it was enough to know that the Time Lord was out there, living his personal timeline, his story still being written.

He’d desperately hoped that in the absence of Time Lord restrictions the Doctor could regenerate indefinitely. Apparently biology wasn’t so easy to defeat… though there was the heart of the TARDIS…

And yes, it was probably selfish as hell to hope the Doctor lived forever. After all, Jack knew full well how much of a curse that could be.

He’d never claimed to be a saint. Heart of the TARDIS. What had Rose done, all those lifetimes ago?

“Poison,” said the Doctor, “No antidote. Not much time.”

“There has to be something we can do.”

“No time. It’s okay.”

Jack sat beside the Doctor, moving the weak Time Lord to rest on his shoulder. His attempts to fight back tears weren’t entirely successful. “Like hell it is.”

“Yes,” insisted the Doctor, stubborn to the end. “Saved a whole solar system, not a bad way to go.”

The Time Lord wasn’t asking for Jack to bring him back to life, and damn it, Jack understood this. The Doctor had lived a long time and he was ready to go now.

“TARDIS is yours now.”

No, no. This suddenly became all too real. “Doctor…”

“You won’t be alone, Jack.”

“I…”

“She’ll be with you, until, well,” here he gasped, or at least attempted to, “I don’t know, exactly. Did I ever tell you how sorry I am about that?”

“Shh, don’t worry about that.” What he meant was, don’t waste your breath apologizing.

“Take good care of her.”

He was crying now. “I will.”

Bequeathing him the TARDIS conveyed more than words ever could have. Jack understood the depth of trust that the Doctor was placing in him, and vowed that he would never let it down.

“She’ll… take care of you.” His breathing was more labored now, pulse weakening almost by the second. The Doctor was dying and there was not a thing Jack could do about it.

He’d held plenty of people while they died. It was never easy, and as much as it hurt, the pain reminded Jack that he was still human, more or less. Like everything else, though, it was different with the Doctor. Jack even tried grasping at denial because this death, of all the deaths in the universe, was too much. This death would leave him alone. It was unbearable in a way he couldn’t recall, not ever, though it was possible that his earliest memories had simply faded with time.

He could suddenly feel grief other than his own, and then he understood what the Doctor meant. Never having experienced a connection to the ship, he couldn’t have grasped it before. He really _wouldn’t_ be alone, and that allowed him to focus on making sure the Doctor died as comfortably as possible.

“We’ll take care of each other,” he said.

“Glad to… hear it.”

“You’ve had an amazing life,” he continued, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Not many people can claim to have done a fraction of the good you have.” As the Time Lord’s pulse grew erratic, Jack whispered, “You can rest now.”

“G’bye, Jack.”

He kissed the cool forehead, unable to form words as the Doctor slipped away. A moment after the Time Lord’s chest stopped moving, he knew his old friend was gone, could feel the TARDIS’s soul ache.

Jack cried for both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, I don't subscribe to the idea that Jack becomes the Face of Boe. I view it as a joke, therefore the Doctor really doesn't know what Jack's ultimate fate will be.


End file.
